"And this is where we get to the hypocrisy at the heart of Mitt Romney. Everyone knows that he is fantastically rich, having scored great success, the legend goes, as a "turnaround specialist," a shrewd financial operator who revived moribund companies as a high-priced consultant for a storied Wall Street private equity firm. But what most voters don't know is the way Mitt Romney actually made his fortune: by borrowing vast sums of money that other people were forced to pay back. This is the plain, stark reality that has somehow eluded America's top political journalists for two consecutive presidential campaigns: Mitt Romney is one of the greatest and most irresponsible debt creators of all time. In the past few decades, in fact, Romney has piled more debt onto more unsuspecting companies, written more gigantic checks that other people have to cover, than perhaps all but a handful of people on planet Earth.

"By making debt the centerpiece of his campaign, Romney was making a calculated bluff of historic dimensions – placing a massive all-in bet on the rank incompetence of the American press corps. The result has been a brilliant comedy: A man makes a $250 million fortune loading up companies with debt and then extracting million-dollar fees from those same companies, in exchange for the generous service of telling them who needs to be fired in order to finance the debt payments he saddled them with in the first place. That same man then runs for president riding an image of children roasting on flames of debt, choosing as his running mate perhaps the only politician in America more pompous and self-righteous on the subject of the evils of borrowed money than the candidate himself. If Romney pulls off this whopper, you'll have to tip your hat to him: No one in history has ever successfully run for president riding this big of a lie. It's almost enough to make you think he really is qualified for the White House."

pueno, thanks for excellent hard hitting commentary on Romney. It's revealing how much dirt is under the rug in Romney's business ventures. There's little wonder in my mind why he's refusing to reveal his yearly tax records like his father did. The downside to being so open and transparent is undoubted huge, despite the likelihood that everything was legal and in accordance with IRS regulations.

There is a serious election going on, and foreign policy, given the high cost of the military and the two wars, really matters. Now the right has chastised Obama for not pandering to Netanyahu, and Mitt has already made it clear that he will outsource his foreign policy decisions in the Mid-East to Netanyahu and Adelson. So I commend to your attention the article in the September 3 New Yorker by David Remnick. The gist of the story is that a number of pretty conservative national security insiders in Israel have gone public with their objections to Netanyahu's bellicosity with Iran. For some time I have suspected that Netanyahu will in fact attack Iran as a run-up to the US presidential elections. But the stakes are very large, both in effectiveness and economic cost.

Among the objectors are Yuval Diskin, head of Sin Bet from 2005 to 2011, Aharon Ze'evi Farkash, former head of military intelligence, and Meir Dagan, head of the Mossad until January 2011. Dagan's comments/questions are particularly pertient: "What would be achieved? What about five minutes after? And what are the consequences of such an attack?" His conclusion is that an attack would lead to a regional role, and bolster the political support for the current Iranian regime.

But the main reason I bring this up is to quote Shimon Peres on the role of Obama. Here's what he has to say:

Quote:

People ask if Obama will meet a commitment, and no douibt he will. ...I trust Obama more than I trust Netanyahu. He's made some stupid mistakes in the Middle East, but he's learned, and he's a serious man. Before Obama, the american military establishment had no plans, no preparations for Iran; now they do. And they have new weapons too [referring to the bunker buster bombs}

Now I am not a supporter of Iran, and the issues in the Middle East are much too complicated to lend themselves to talking points. But there is a consistent pattern here. Obama is an honest man, who is more concerned with spending time eating dinner with his family than rich donors like Adelson. He will make decisions based on the advice he gets, and learn from his mistakes. And he is infinitely more competent than his predecessors or Mitt.

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